Blog

November 10, 2022 Last Sunday was All Saints Sunday. We gathered, prayed, sang, lit candles, joined with the church in every time and place in sharing the heavenly banquet – the body of blood of Christ in Holy Communion. One of my favorite things about the Christian life of faith is that we are not in it alone. We are part of a new humanity in Christ. We are accompanied…

November 3, 2022 “Lord, keep us steadfast in your word,” we sang out on Reformation Sunday, praying that God would hold us fast in God’s Word so that we might follow Jesus’ words to those who believe in him, continuing in God’s Word and coming to know the truth and experience freedom. What does it look like to continue steadfast in…

October 13, 2022 In last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Luke 17:11-19, Jesus heals ten people with leprosy. He makes them well – cured of their illness even as they simply walk toward the priests and follow the Word that Christ speaks to them. And then one, but only one, of the ten, turns back toward Christ and offers thanks to God in Christ for this work for this…

October 6, 2022 Jesus speaks about how faith the size of a mustard seed has immense potential. This is because faith isn’t something that gets stronger the more you get, it isn’t something we measure in normal ways. Faith is the act of trusting God today and into the future. Faith comes to us as a gift. God plants seeds of faith within us that grow fruit to…

September 29, 2022 For weeks at this point we have been hearing Jesus tell one parable after another about being generous and building relationships. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m starting to wonder why Jesus had to keep telling stories about this. Didn’t the disciples get it? Hadn’t the Scribes and Pharisees heard it just as often as the…

September 22, 2022 Last Sunday’s gospel reading, Luke 16:1-13, tells a confounding parable about a manager about to use his job, who, in an effort to provide for himself after he is kicked out of his master’s house, forgives debts owed to his master, and in an interesting turn of events is praised by the master for doing so even when his actions mean his…

September 15, 2022 On Sunday, I began my sermon with a quote from Mary Poppins Returns. “You can’t lose what you’ve never lost,” she sings in the song Where The Lost Things Go. And then I invited us to consider three different ways we might learn from Jesus’ parables of the lost in Luke 15:1-10. Maybe the 99 sheep were supposed…

September 8, 2022 Jesus knew the cost of living God’s mission of reconciliation and love.He knew exactly what living God’s love with all of his heart, strength, soul, and mind and loving his neighbor as himself would cost him.Jesus knows when he tells his disciples that “the Son of Man must go, suffer, die, and on the third day be raised,” his…

September 1, 2022 Sunday we welcomed Siena Kaleh into the church and the mission we share through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. The baptismal waters remind us who and whose we are. That we are beloved bearers of God’s own image and we belong to Christ. As we welcomed Siena, we heard Jesus speak of what it looks like to invite and welcome people to the table. Jesus…

August 25, 2022 As we welcomed Pastor Kathy Haueisen to launch our Seeds of Hope campaign this weekend, we heard the words of the prophet Isaiah and God calling us to be repairers of the breach (Isaiah 58:9-14) and the story of Jesus unbinding and healing a woman on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10-17). It is never lost on me that when Jesus heals, he does so holistically. By that…